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not reflect current scientific knowledge
or recommendations. These texts
represent the historic publishing
record of the Institute for Food and
Agricultural Sciences and should be
used only to trace the historic work of
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Cooperative Extension Service.

Packaging of foliage plants during shipment aids in handling plants and ;-'*.'
protects them from mechanical damage, but the value of sleeves or boxes in
preventing loss of plant quality from chilling damage or desiccation is not
known. Additional costs associated with sleeping and boxing foliage plants
has induced many producers to open-ship plants and results have generally
been acceptable. At the present time, 50% or more of larger foliage plants
from south Florida are open-shipped, while the number would be lower for
central Florida (possibly 20% or less). Not only have costs associated with
packaging become a burden to producers, but many purchasers have difficulty
in disposing of large volumes of packaging materials.

Our interest in packaging was related to our research on long-term
storage and/or shipping and potential loss in quality from open-shipping.

The three experiments described were established to compare open-shipping
(plants neither sleeved nor boxed) with sleeved or sleeved and boxed plants.
The main objective was to observe whether plants subjected to air movement
within the shipping unit (reefer, container, etc.) would be damaged after one
to two weeks simulated shipping.

Experiment 1. Dracaena marginata (Red edge dracaena) and Chamaedorea
eleaans (Parlor palm) in six inch containers were sleeved, sleeved and boxed,
or left open (unpackaged) and placed in coolers maintained at 50 or 60F for
one week. Plants were watered the day before packaging, but received no
light or water while in coolers.

Neither temperature nor packaging system had any effect on Dracaena,
while with Chamaedorea open-shipped plants at 500F appeared best (Table 1).
One might have expected open-shipped plants to be damaged at 50F, thus these
results are confusing.

Experiment 2. Dieffenbachia amoena 'Tropic Snow' and Nephrolepis exaltata
'Florida Ruffle' in six inch containers were sleeved with either paper or
fiberglass or left open, and placed in coolers for two weeks at 45 or 65F
to simulate shipment.

Quality of Brassaia was best when shipped at 450F and poorest at 750F for
two weeks, while poorest Ficus and Dieffenbachia were observed at 450F and
best at 55 or 650F. No interactions were observed between packaging system
and temperature.

Results of these experiments indicated that packaging method had little
effect on plant quality of the genera tested other than possible control of
physical damage and improved handling for the one to two week shipping
durations tested. It is possible that watering the day prior to placing
plants in coolers aided in preventing desiccation, especially since
considerable air movement occurs within the test chambers utilized, or
possibly the maintenance of high humidity (80 to 90%) prevented its
occurrence. These data should aid producers in selecting packaging systems,
and indicate that selection of shipping temperature is more important than
packinging system.